Wild Maxim
by Extrinsical
Summary: Clarke Griffin is no predator.


_Updated 05/06/2015 - Grammar/tenses fixes. Major thanks to amenamyacker for the assistance!_

One-shot | this is the truth | 3,445 words  
Post-Season 2. There will be spoilers.

 _BGM:_ _London Grammar - Hey now_

. . .

" _A missile has been aimed at Polis_ ," the old, kind voice says through the strange communication device pressed to her ear.

Lexa's eyes close for the briefest of moments.

" _We no longer have any use for your people when we have the Sky People,"_ the radio crackles with the chill of the truth _, "so take your people and go - and I promise you that no more harm will come to them."_

Blue eyes the color of the sea at dusk flashes past her mind.

" _What say you… heda?_ "

She breathes in the cool air, and speaks the words that allows her heart to go cold once more.

"It is done."

. . .

Before they met, she had wondered how a boy still wet behind his ears could so easily kill eighteen, for a girl. But then Costia would come to mind, an eternal ache somewhere deep in her chest, and she would understand.

And now, as she looks at the girl in front of her - even more so.

"Where are my people?" the accusation in that soft whisper burns her.

So this once, she softens the blow the only way she knows how.

"I'm sorry, Clarke." Her words are equally quiet. "They weren't part of the deal."

She lets her go all in one breath.

She does not look away from the raw grief and ice and understanding that pools in blue eyes, and does not speak of missiles and Polis.

This is her gift.

And her condemnation.

"May we meet again," she says instead with certainty, for she can see that her spirit still burns bright and hot despite how the tiny bud between them shrivels and turns to ashes.

. . .

The Mountain Men are dead, spirits searching for new abodes.

Her people sing - half in awe, half in fear - for the Sky People had done what they could never do.

Lexa can admit to herself that, when she left Clarke standing there, this was not what she had expected to happen.

But then again perhaps she should have, with the repeatedly ingenious, brilliant plans that the other had come up with - burning three hundred of her warriors alive, for one. Trapping the pauna. Pointing out the very fact that they already have an army waiting to be unleashed from within the mountain.

And then the destruction of the Mountain Men with the Sky People coming out relatively unscathed.

So what changed?

Indra's gaze is piercing and heavy and at her.

"The scouts has seen her. Alone. She travels without direction, without purpose."

The tip of the twirling dagger presses against the edge of her index finger, sharp but not sharp enough to draw blood.

Something is wrong.

The Clarke of the Sky People that she knows does not abandon her own people. What had she done to the Mountain Men that drove her to this?

"Heda."

Blood trickles down her finger, the consequences of her stray thoughts.

A momentary rue crosses her expression.

The dagger retracts and she embeds it into the armrest again.

"She is not to be touched, Indra."

" _Sha_."

Lexa closes her eyes.

It is not her place to ask. Not her place to know.

Everything that she is, is for her people.

But at the very least, she can do this.

. . .

"A wolf pup follows the girl, heda."

Despite herself, her eyebrows climb.

"Where is the mother? The pack?" Wolves never travel alone.

"There was no pack. Only the mother and her pup."

Perhaps, she thinks, the pack had been preyed by another. On this soil they live on, even predators are prey. Such is the reality of this world.

"The mother is dead. Killed by skygirl herself." A pause. "You should have seen it, heda. The pup pounced when the mother died, latched itself to her arm - I thought it would have ripped her arm off."

Her finger twitches. Wolves are regal, beautiful predators. Even a pup barely a month old is deadly and dangerous.

"I watched the skygirl pick up her knife, ready to kill. But she didn't, heda." Her scout is the very picture of confusion. "Instead she dropped her weapon, touched the pup, and held it."

Wonder and awe and fear plays on his face.

"The pup removed its teeth. Licked at her wound," he says. "And now… Now it follows her. Guards her."

She wonders if picking up dangerous strays and letting them follow her is a habit of Clarke's.

Or if it will be.

. . .

Clarke Griffin is no predator.

Her heart is soft, unhardened still, and yet strong despite all of that.

But the ones that she leaves imprints on are dangerous.

Such as Lexa herself.

The wolf pup.

And this warrior who holds blood and shadows in his gaze, a boy no longer.

 _(- but perhaps that is why Clarke Griffin is the most dangerous of them all - )_

Indra, beside her, is staunchly silent; gaze hard.

"Bellamy of the Sky People," she speaks, eyes cool. "Why are you here?"

His jaw clenches.

"I am here to make sure the alliance will hold."

A fool, she thinks, to reveal what he wants from the very first step. He is a warrior, perhaps a leader in his own way, but miles and miles behind the girl with blonde hair and blue eyes who knows what to wield and when even if she may hesitate.

Indra bares her teeth. "Who are you to make sure of that, boy?"

Something in his bearings twists. _Because you betrayed us_ , his eyes say, _and we don't know when you will come for us next._

But his words is slow and measured.

"This is what Clarke would have done."

Her gaze narrows.

"Leave us," she says sharply.

Indra turns to her. "Heda, that is - "

" _Leave us_."

Her warriors leave; Indra's gaze hard and promising blood on the boy should he do anything foolish.

Silence reigns.

The boy stares at her unflinchingly.

Such bravery, she decides, should be rewarded.

But only once.

"That was unwise of you, Bellamy Blake." The dagger twirls in her lax grip. "The desires of one person means nothing in the grand scheme of the world."

He sets his jaw. "No," he agrees, despite that being the very thing he had brought up moments earlier.

On purpose?

The corner of her lips turn up despite herself. It appears she may have underestimated him, if his goal is to get a private audience.

"Clarke spoke highly of you. I can see why."

Something tense coils around his shoulders at that. "You've no right to speak her name," he says viciously. "Not after how you betrayed _her_ trust and forced her hand."

She does not flinch, for she owes no apology for doing what is right for her people.

"Do you know what we did to save our people?" he says scathingly. "We irradiated all of the mountain men. The old, the children, the innocent - _everyone_."

She gazes at him steadily. "And your people are alive because of that."

"She _chose_ to do it at the cost of _her soul_."

Silence.

Now, Lexa understands why Clarke left.

Now, Lexa understands why Clarke did not kill the wolf pup.

She inclines her head in acceptance instead.

"We will trade with the Sky People."

His gaze is guarded. "What do you mean?"

"I have seen your technology. Your medicine. What you can do for the reapers. For that you will have supplies to survive the winter."

A temporary solution, she thinks, but one that may lead to more once the harsh season passes. Time enough to go to Polis, to discuss, to keep the fragile peace between the twelve clans plus one.

Especially when tension is rising with the Ice Nation.

The boy doesn't seem to follow however, confusion lining his features.

"You wish to maintain the alliance," she says after a moment, "but it is already broken." By her own choice on that mountain as Clarke stared at her with understanding and grief and _hurt_.

He tenses at her words.

She eyes him calmly.

"Do I need to tell you what a trade route will do to prevent a war, Bellamy Blake?"

. . .

It is an uneasy truce, one that the boy pushes with and haggles and forces the council of the Sky People to agree with.

But it is a truce nonetheless, and the winter passes.

Forty had succumbed to the harsh season and died. Of them, twelve belonged to the Sky People.

And it is just only beginning. More trials await them, and still Clarke is nowhere to be seen. They will need her, she thinks, for things to come. Bellamy is not suited for politics, Abby Griffin is too soft, and Marcus Kane is a good second but not a leader.

She is weak for thinking it, but she wonders how the girl fares now.

The pup, if it still lives, should be large enough that it reaches the height of her knees - and then to her waist in another season and be three times as dangerous.

If it's not dead, does it still guard her? Or has it turned against her?

Does she still live?

"Commander."

She looks up into the wary eyes of Raven Reyes that are far less hostile from when she compares it to a season ago.

"You are bleeding," the mechanic says, staring at her tightly clenched fist.

Lexa stares at it momentarily before nodding, wrapping a tattered strip of cloth around her hand and watching the blood seep into it. "Continue with your explanation," she directs simply without inflection. She is more interested in hearing how this water pump system is going to work.

The dark-skinned girl with a crippled leg just stares at her for a long moment, one hand clenching at the papers with schematics and crumpling them some.

Then, with a long inhale of breath, Raven drops the papers on the table.

"I heard the recording," the girl bites out, tense fingers going white as they press against the wood.

Her brows furrow. "Recording?"

Raven looks as if she's fighting off a grimace, before she sighs again. "The Mountain Men. They recorded all communications made via their system." A pause. "As in they make copies of conversations that they have with anyone," she says, as if thinking better of her explanation.

Something goes still in her. Her hand throbs with dull pain.

"Clarke didn't know, did she?"

The crippled girl's gaze pierces into her.

"She didn't know he threatened to bomb Polis."

Lexa does not flinch. "A deal is a deal, Raven of the Sky People," she says, and instantly wants to take back her own words. They sound as weak as she feels they are.

Raven scowls at that and mutters things that are unfamiliar to her (something like _dumbass,_ _duo morons_ and _damned martyrs_ ) under her breath.

And though she may not understand the things that the other speaks, she's almost certain they are insults. It makes her brow arch despite herself; it is both refreshing and amusing to see another who is so direct with her (Anya was first, then Costia, then Clarke).

Raven huffs and crosses her arms, seemingly uncaring of the fact that her guards outside the tent is capable of killing the skygirl for being insolent. "I hate you. And I will never stop hating you for what you have done. But you know what?"

An angry glare is aimed at her - a mixture of annoyance, exasperation and hostility.

"If you know Clarke as well as I think you do," the mechanic says in a harsh, brittle tone, "you know this won't make her hate you even if you wanted her to."

Silence.

A hint of a smile tugs at her lips despite herself.

She inclines her head, almost in approval. "Clarke has found good allies among her people."

The other just scowls again, looking supremely unsatisfied and miffed that Lexa seems amused.

What Raven doesn't understand is that it changes _nothing_ , because ultimately the ripple it could or can create is so miniscule in the grand scheme of things.

But Clarke, she believes, knows that.

. . .

It is mid-summer when the news reaches her.

Clarke has returned to Camp Jaha, a guardian wolf by her side.

It is enough to nearly send an uproar among Lexa's people, for who has ever heard of a wolf being tamed? She is responsible for the destruction of the Mountain Men, and now a regal, beautiful beast is at her command.

She is revered.

She is feared.

Guided by the spirits, some of the Grounders murmur.

"They have her on some weird pedestal," Raven says, sweat trickling down her temple. "You know that, right, commander?"

"It is not undeserved," Lexa replies after a moment.

Raven frowns, not ready to let the topic go. "What does that mean for Clarke?"

"It means she will be obeyed. It also means she will be a target." Lexa pauses, thinking about the looming war. "She should have guards with her."

"There's a big scary wolf with sharp teeth trailing after her like a love-sick puppy and that's not enough?"

Lexa nods, more than used to Raven's strange and occasional blunt words by now.

"That's - "

" _Shof op._ " Lexa grunts as she readjusts her hold on the arm slung over her shoulder. "You talk too much."

"How about you try getting stabbed in the non-functional leg by some dumbass Ice Nation scouts and break your brace," Raven mutters, somehow still very resentful despite the blood loss that makes her lightheaded.

She almost rolls her eyes but refrains simply out of sheer control. "Save your breath. At least you don't feel the pain. We will be at your camp soon."

The mechanic huffs but doesn't say anything else, focusing on taking her steps instead.

They walk in silence for another hour before the Ark looms in sight, and it is a relief even though incensed, murderous rage still burns in her.

Ice Nation has declared war by ambushing them. They will pay for the death of her warriors and the attendants of the Sky People, she thinks it like a blood oath - and this time, Lexa _will_ take the head of the Ice Nation's queen before she can so much _as touch a hair on Clarke's head_.

"You think too loud," Raven mumbles, seemingly delirious. "And that's a super scary look on your face, commander."

" _Shof op,_ " she grunts again, even as she sees the gate opening from a distance and a group of sky people already coming out to greet them with Abby guarded in the middle.

. . .

They meet two days later, set to travel back to Polis with due haste and with guards belonging to the Sky People.

And somehow they are alone for the moment, with the other leaning against a broken remnant of the Ark.

The majestic wolf, with fur the color of snow and charcoal, curls around the feet of the girl with blonde hair and blue eyes.

She's wearing thin clothing with light, scattered pieces of metal drafted into the short-sleeved jacket as protection; there is an old, tattered cloth wrapping around her left forearm - and Lexa is thinking, that's where the wolf bit her.

Clarke takes a deep breath. Clenches her fists.

"Lexa," the girl says, voice as clear as she remembers it to be, despite that the girl is shifting from foot to foot nervously.

The summer sun catches in her hair, turning it white gold like she knows it will.

There are shadows in those blue eyes, deeper and darker than the last time they were together - yet the glimmer that she knows still exists, muted but burning steadily. Time alone, it seems, has helped the girl to heal. Not completely. But she is healing.

"Clarke."

Something in that expression twists.

"I understand why you took the deal," Clarke says quietly without preamble. The turmoil of emotions in her gaze makes Lexa want to turn away, but she doesn't. "And I know about Polis. I - Raven told me about Polis. But, Lexa - "

The girl cuts herself off, licks her lips, and continues again.

"It doesn't change anything."

It doesn't change the fact that she broke the alliance. Crushed what could have been between them. Left them to die. Left _her_ to die.

She nods.

Silence.

Clarke breaks it again.

"Did you know that I had a grudge on Wells for a very long time?" Something raw brims in that voice. "Because I thought he got my dad floated?"

Lexa doesn't know Wells, even if she knows what the term 'floated' means. But she does not think it matters either.

The blonde steps closer, until they are a bare step from each other - and it is the wolf who comes by Lexa's feet, sniffing at her tense hand as she remains still. She doesn't know how Clarke has tamed this beast, but it is still a _predator_ and she is ready to counter.

Still, she is the leader of her people, and she refuses to be cowed. She stares down at the wolf with grey eyes stoically and watches it watch her. It is a very long five seconds before the wolf licks at her knuckle (she has to force herself to stop from jolting in surprise) and backtracks to sit by Clarke's feet, seemingly content to watch the surroundings.

She turns her gaze back to Clarke, who appears to have been watching them with amusement.

"He likes you." There's something resembling conflicted humor in the blonde's soft voice.

It is her turn to lick at her lips, feeling strangely lighter and young. "That is good, I assume?"

A true smile tugs at Clarke's features. "That is good."

It is another moment before the laughter fades from blue eyes, and old grief returns to rest in that gaze.

"Wells was my best friend," is the quiet words, "and I didn't talk to him for so long. When I wanted him back, all I had with him was a day before he died."

Her eyes are pale blue in the sun, clear enough that she can see the irises within.

Lexa's mouth feels dry, but she speaks. "Death is not the end, Clarke."

Something like pain and anger flits past the other's features. "You don't get to do what he did and die afterwards, Lexa. You don't - you should have told me about Polis. You should have told _me_."

The commander doesn't know how what she had done that is similar to what this Wells had done, because what happened to Clarke's father is vastly different to what happened at Mount Weather.

But it is clear that the girl in front of her sees something, and it haunts her.

This is why she lifts a hand to brush against Clarke's cheek gently, as if to soothe the sting of the truth that she speaks next. "It changes nothing, Clarke. We would still be at where we are."

"I know," Clarke says wearily, closing her eyes, not leaning into her touch but not moving away either. "I just - " A sharp inhale of breath, and her eyes opens to meet Lexa's. "I need your spirit right here with me. You don't get to die in this war. Okay?"

It's the first hint of vulnerability that Clarke shows and Lexa is not sure if that is wise.

She breathes in the warm air.

Nothing is right between them, and it may never be. There are so many things hanging between them; things that may never get resolved and may fester. And there are the clans to think about, blood that the Ice Nation needs to pay, and fragile peace to get back.

But Lexa nods anyway. "For as long as the earth will allow, my spirit will be here, Clarke."

Clarke searches her gaze for a long moment before nodding decisively and taking a step back, and Lexa lets her hand drop.

The girl gestures in the general direction of where they are set to go with both shadows and light in her eyes. "Are you going to show me Polis when we get there? You said it will change how I think about your people."

The corner of her lips curls up. "And you said I already have."

There is a pause, and Clarke looking at her with eyes so blue and bright, and quiet words.

"You have, Lexa."

A long pause.

In the distance, the trees rustle and cicadas sing.

"I know."

 _. . ._

A/N - ...Hm. I don't really know what to say. I guess I should say I started this because majority of post-canon fics tend to be in Clarke's POV? Maybe one day I'll write the events from Clarke's side of things, assuming this had been worth checking out. I like the idea of Clarke having a stray wolf follow her around.

Also, Raven is cool. Lexa-Raven dynamics should be explored more often, just saying.

Other than that, I hope this has been a good read. Feedback, criticism, all welcomed and appreciated. Any errors found will be fixed in the coming days as well, if there's any.

Thanks for reading!


End file.
